


Bowling day

by iriswesttt



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-22 20:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6093751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iriswesttt/pseuds/iriswesttt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iris and Barry take the twins bowling for the first time</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bowling day

Iris opened her eyes to see the muted light coming through their draped windows, making shadow shapes in the soft pink wall of their bedroom. Behind her, Barry nuzzled into the crook of her neck, his hands sneaking under the t-shirt (his) she was wearing, and letting his hands travel from her hips to her boobs, lingering on her belly button, making her sigh softly; 

“How long do you think we have?”

“It’s 7:30”, he whispered in her ear, “I would say about 20-25 minutes.”

“Aren’t we the optimistic ones today?”

“Hey, Iris, 25 minutes, I can make you come twice. Three times on a good day.”

“I don’t doubt that part.”

And all they had was time for one sleepy kiss before they heard a little girl’s voice carrying;

_“Mommy!”_

Barry left out a complaining moan, pushing her t-shit up, letting the fabric huddle just above her boobs, placing two kisses there, one in the middle and one by her left boob, before he took her headscarf off, trowing it towards the lamp on his bedside table and, mumbling her name, he buried his face on her now loose hair and murmured;

“Maybe if we’re really quiet they’ll give us a few minutes.”

He had barely finished the sentence when the second  _Mommy_ , from the other child now, arrived;

“Again, aren’t we the optimistic ones today?”

She pushed him off of her and informed him;

“They are your kids, you go. I need to linger a little.”

“How come they are only my kids when they are either keeping us from sleeping or waking us up or terrorising us?”, but he sat up on the bed, fumbling around the sheets for his boxers.

“I don’t know a lot about genetics but I’m pretty sure the fast genes came from you, now you have to pay.”, she retorted, turning her back to him and closing her eyes again. She missed morning sex, and shower sex (they could barely ever have those) and kitchen sex and couch sex (those were definitively a thing from the past), she had never been fully aware of their lack of filter around each other and the amount of sex they used to have until the twins were born and they had to be quiet and behind closed doors.

Barry was half way opening the door, after putting on his t-shirt, when the pair came bursting in, jumping over their bed and chanting;

_“Bowling day, bowling day, it’s bowling day!”_

“Come on mommy, wake up! It’s bowling day.” Dawn informed her, kneeling down beside her and placing both of her little hands on Iris cheeks, squeezing them, making her lips into fish-mouth and Iris answered her by giving her little fish-y kisses, delighting in her daughter’s laugh.

“Yeah, mommy! Get up!”, Don was still jumping up and down and he threw himself into Barry’s arms, who, after catching him said to Dawn, causing her to also jump on his arms;

“Come on, Buga, let mommy sleep a little bit while we make break fast.”

He put both of them down and their bare feet barely touched the floor and they were already out of the door.

“Whose’s idea this bowling day was?” He asked, folding into her for another kiss, a proper one this time.

“Yours”, she informed him.

 _“Daddy! Come on”,_  and Iris wasn’t so sure their voices were actually coming from the kitchen.

“How much of the house do you think is down by now?” she asked into his collar bones.

“I’ll put it back”. He kissed her again, slowly and greedy but she could listen to the twins fighting over which bowl they would use to make the pancakes/waffles (they were fighting over that too) and Barry pulled away whining; “I miss sex”, echoing her.

“We had sex last night.”

“I miss all the sex.”

“My dad will watch the kids tomorrow night and we’ll get our date”, she told him, petting his hair. He had Dawn’s eyes. Or rather she had his, except for the colour, a darker golden green on hers, while his was a greener green, but she had the same multicolour iris, a little blue on the sides, like they were watercolour painted. He also had Don’s smile, the one that made their eyes all shiny, like the smile came from somewhere other than the muscles of their faces, and she couldn’t understand how that could make her love him even more, but it did.  

“No, we won’t. I don’t know what you’re expecting, but there will be no date, there will be me and you finally naked and that’s it.” He said in a sharp tone that didn’t match the way his hands traveled up and down her spine, bringing her closer, making her nest into him.

She laughed, nipping lips, and told him that sounded good enough to her when something dropped, making a breaking sound, in the kitchen.

“I’m on it”, he assured her, and then he was also out of the door saying, “ok, Tornados, who wants pancakes who wants waffles?”, and Iris turned to breath into his pillow, waiting for him to bring her her coffee, mulling over how true happiness was just content, having things not exactly how you wanted them but how they should be, just like Barry had always been her husband somehow and they were the twins parents way before they even existed.

* * *

Barry watched as Iris kneeled, explaining to the kids how to hold the ball correctly and saying it was heavy so they had to be careful not to drop on their feet, or on each other’s feet and they listened to her intently, nodding their heads in unison. She made strike, showing them how to throw it, and them guided each one, her hands over theirs, as they tried it. It was the first time they were taking the twins bowling and they had been excitedly asking their parents for bowling stories for over a week now, and then recounting them back to everyone who would listen including Iris and Barry themselves, now they were enjoying everything, from the shoes to the lights and the colours reflecting on the lane. 

They were always better behaved when they were in public, so much so people who had never babysit them or really frequent their home would constantly make impressed remarks on how they could be so well educated when they were only four and watching them, one at a time, letting their first ball slide over, Barry guessed that making them understand that they couldn’t show their powers just in front of everyone, was a great lesson on publicly control.

“Daddy, daddy, did you see that? I got a pin!” Don jumped into his arms and Barry threw him up in the air, getting an Iris-laugh out of him, the same one she had for Barry ever since they were kids and something about being on their bowling alley, with their children, and having Iris smiling back at him and their son made Barry suddenly realise how grateful and undeserving of all of it, of the complete happiness they made him feel, he was.

“I did see that, Bumble! That was very good!”

Iris stood up, and Dawn hugged her leg as Iris absently fixed her daughter’s hair bow and rested a hand on the back of her head, she had always done that, ever since they were old enough to walk, she had the protective hand on the back of their heads. For Barry it was a learned trait, he copied Iris, a little because it made sense, you protect your kids head, you can anchor them, if needed, that way, but also a little because the way Iris would do that, he would watch her and how it made it so clear that they were hers, but they were also his, so he got to do that too.

“Ok, who wants to team with me?” Iris asked the Tornados and they immediately answered with noise, saying together;

“ _Me!_ ”  
“No! Me! I’m on mommy’s team!”

Iris smiled fondly at the two of them, a little proudly, watching them jumping around her as she told them;  

“You can both be on my team.”

And Barry beamed at all three of them. She deserved it, after all she had to be more than super mom to mother two kids with super speed when she didn’t have it. 

“Yeah! We’re on mommy’s team.”

“What about me?”, Barry whined at them, knowing the response already. He would get to go against the three of them. As a general rule things actually went better when the twins weren’t playing against each other, so it was either the twins and him against Iris or the twins and Iris against him, seeing as they didn’t exactly work as a duo against their parents either, even if Iris and Barry always let them win, meaning Barry would eventually oblige, but now he just wanted to feign offence a little bit.

“You’re good, daddy, you don’t need help.”, Dawn tried to pacify him and he knew exactly from whom she had pick up that tactic from.

“Mom’s good too”, Barry let her know.

“Yeah, but we’re on her team now, come on, Buga.”

Buga was how Don used to call Dawn when he was learning how to talk, they were never really sure as to how he turned either  _sister_  or  _Dawn_  into it, but it eventually stick and Iris came up with Bumble so it wouldn’t be just one kid with a silly nickname. As they both went to pick up a ball and quietly fight to decide who was going to go first Barry teased her;

“They so like you better.”

“Well, there has to be an upside to all the vomit and the pushing them out of your vagina”, and then she turned to the kids, still silently struggling for the first ball and Iris decided; “Ok, Buga, you let your brother first this time.”

Iris turned to face Barry once the kids were back to behaving and she knit her brows together, asking him;

“Are you ok?” 

“Yeah, why?”, he asked, sitting down on their bench, looking up to her, in front of him, from under his eyelashes. He still liked to do that every now and again.

“You look… gloomy. You know it doesn’t really mean anything, right? It’s just that I actually feed them more often than you do.” 

He shook his head at that, that wasn’t where his thoughts were at all. Sometimes, Iris could eventually misread him, but it always surprised him when she did; 

“No, it’s not that, it’s just —They are turning five next week.”

“I know.” Don turned back to make sure they were watching as his ball hit two of the pins this time and Iris cheered; “That was very good, baby!”

“Buga, you’re holding it with the wrong finger.” Barry informed his daughter, and she corrected herself, turning to him again to make sure it was  _like this?_  and he nodded at her in response. Sometimes her intonation, the way she would say something would remind him so much of Iris it actually scared him.

People always warn the parents to be that nothing could prepare them to the love you feel for your children. Joe had said that to him short before their birth and Barry had gladly informed him he had been proved wrong afterwards: he was expecting to love them infinitely, he already did before they were even born, he did before him and Iris even knew they were two and not just one and all he was doing was holding Iris’ hair back while she threw up every morning for three months. What he wasn’t prepared for was that having them would make him love Iris even more. He thought that was already endless but it somehow keep on expanding, just like his love for their kids now, as they turned slowly into real people, with personalities and opinions, just like the fear that the notion that nothing is permanent brought on him, just like the universe.

He caught Iris watching him watching them and she brought the subject back, sitting on his lap and telling him;

“Hey.”

He looked away from the kids into his wife eye’s and asked;

“What?”

She smiled a little wicked at him as she told him;

“We’ve made them.”

“I know. From scratch.”

She brushed his hair off his forehead and he enjoyed as she petted his hair lovingly; 

“You know, we’re pretty good team.”

“Yeah, we are.”

As he didn’t say anything else she tried again;

“I can’t believe it’s been five years either.”

“It went by just so fast, it feels like yesterday you were doing that first ultrasound, but at the same time I can’t remember what was like to not have them, you know? It feels like…”

“… we’ve had them all along.”

“Yeah.”

He smiled at her. It was always reassuring when she felt exactly how he was feeling, when she could put into words what he was trying to describe to her and failing miserably. So he enjoyed the way she smiled back, leaning into a little chaste kiss that he barely had the time to taste before there’s a kid crying out;

“Mom!” Don only called Iris mom and him dad whenever he was mad, and right now his ears were red and his lips pressed together and, oh! he was mad, but Barry missed the reason for it (Don had just hit two pins again and he wasn’t fighting his sister, there was no apparent damage management needed), until he finished; “Stop kissing the enemy!”

And Iris laughed in surprise which only made Don angrier. She shouldn’t be surprise, Barry thought, he got all the competitiveness from her, and just like her he would also cheer if the opponent team succeeded. Dawn interfered before Don could do anything about his mother kissing the enemy though;

“It’s daddy’s turn now!”

“Oh, it’s my turn, ok.” Iris got on her feet to let him go pick a ball and as he looked at the pink one that was the next in line he decided to go another way; “Uhn, you know, I’m not so sure about this ball.”

He could see in Iris’ eyes when exactly she noticed what was on his mind and decided to feed into it, asking;

“Oh, you aren’t?”

“Nope, perhaps if I use a Buga-bear instead!”

Dawn let out a shirk of joy and jumped out of his reach, but he only needed one step to pick her up and turn her upside down, enjoying the way she giggled, her arms searching for a part of his body she could take hold on saying;

“No, daddy, no!”

And he asked;

“You want me to put you down?”

“No!”

And Don was jumping up and down the bench saying;

“I want to go down the lane too! May I? Please!”

And there, in the middle of their kids happy noise, he had never been so glad he wasn’t winning a game of bowling. 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr iriswestthings


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